The subject application is directed to a system and method for discovery of network document processing devices. In particular, the subject application is directed to a system and method which allows for the discovery of document processing device functions on a network using standard implementations of Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) technical models (tModels).
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is an international consortium that supports development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards. Within OASIS is an effort leading to development of the UDDI protocol, which is a web services building block. UDDI creates an interoperable platform that allows one to quickly, easily, and dynamically find and use Web services over the Internet. UDDI also allows operational registries to be maintained for different purposes in different contexts. UDDI is a cross-industry effort within the OASIS standards consortium.
The UDDI project takes advantage of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards such as Extensible Markup Language (XML), and HTTP and Domain Name System (DNS) protocols. Additionally, cross platform programming features are addressed by adopting early versions of the proposed Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) known as XML Protocol messaging specifications.
Current UDDI specifications define: SOAP application program interfaces (“APIs”) that applications use to query and to publish information to a UDDI registry; XML Schema schemata of the registry data model and the SOAP message formats; Web Service Definition Language (“WSDL”) definitions of the SOAP APIs; and UDDI registry definitions (technical models—tModels) of various identifier and category systems that may be used to identify and categorize UDDI registrations.
tModels are core components of UDDI. tModels represent unique concepts or constructs and are used to describe compliance with a specification, a concept, a category or identifier system, or a shared design. Each tModel suitably contains an overview URL, which references a document that describes the tModel and its use in more detail. Specification tModels are used to represent service type definitions, that is, reusable features of Web services. Web service registrations reference specification tModels in order to indicate their compliance with the service type definition. Category systems and identifier systems tModels, together known as “value sets” enable the categorization and identification of entities registered in UDDI in accordance to these value sets. This provides an ability to attribute metadata to providers and services registered in UDDI, and then run queries based on that metadata.